1. Field
The present disclosure is directed to a method and apparatus for portable electronic device media data storage. More particularly, the present disclosure is directed to predicting memory on a portable electronic device will become full of record and/or playback data and directed to helping to avoid or delay the future full memory condition.
2. Introduction
Portable electronic devices used in today's society include mobile phones, personal digital assistants, digital video recorders, digital audio recorders, digital cameras, media players, multimedia devices, and various other electronic communication devices. These portable electronic devices can store media data, such as audio, video, and/or image data, that a user records and/or plays back on the portable electronic device. Unfortunately, this media data can accumulate and take up a large amount of memory on a portable electronic device. Thus, a device may run out of memory when a user is recording media data when the user has no means for backing up data.
For example, a user, in the middle of taking some photographs in a park on a holiday, suddenly runs out of space in his removable memory card and cannot take any further photographs. The user is forced to spend the next few minutes going through the contents in the card to get some space. In this process, the user loses some good photo-ops.
As another example, a user is out on his usual monthly trekking, listening to music on a device. The user gets an alert from a friend that there is a fantastic new music that has just been released. The user starts downloading the new album, but runs out of space on his device halfway through downloading and is forced to take a break and spend the next half hour cleaning up some memory to continue downloading the album. In this process, the user loses time while on a trip.
As a further example, a user is on a weekend trip outside and is taking some videos when the user suddenly runs out of disk space. The contents stored in the device are so important that the user cannot delete any of them. The user must then upload some of his existing videos to an online video tube service using a cellular data connection and the delete the data locally so the user can continue taking videos. Thus, the user wastes valuable and costly cellular bandwidth as well as time uploading the videos.
As an additional example, a user is outside visiting with close friends. As the user starts taking videos and pictures, the device runs out of memory. If the user does not have access to cellular or wireless data coverage or external data storage, the user is forced to delete some of the existing content on the device to continue taking pictures and videos since the user does not want to miss out on the current opportunity. In this case, the user is forced to part with precious data.
Thus, there is a need for method and apparatus for portable electronic device media data storage that predicts memory on the portable electronic device will become full.